The shot has some noticeable noise and the image quality has suffered a bit from the crop. I know on my camera the higher in ISO I go the less I can get away with cropping. How much of the original did you crop?
The noise is an issue, but I've seen worse. You could probably reduce it on a separate layer and mask it just to the BG. Cropping from the top enough to get rid of the dark square in the UL will give more emphasis to the bee.
I hate having to balance all the factors. Often bees will let you get close, but maybe the min focus distance of the lens was a factor. Using an extension tube will help a lot.
A soft light day is better than full sun for pleasing lighting, but I'd go with flash for a situation like this -- you'll get a very high effective shutter speed and can go to a low ISO. That will give you a better chance at a sharp subject. Diffuse the flash for much more pleasing light modeling. Get a large diffuser that is held out near the front end of the lens, not one that fits right over the flash head.
We all are! But it's a wonderful exploration. With macro, it's really important to get exact focus and to prevent and movement (camera or subject). The magnification really shows any movement, and DOF is very small at close distances.
Flash will give you very high effective shutter speeds (up to 1/30,0000 sec) and allow great control over the lighting. I use M exposure and set the ISO and aperture so the ambient light on the subject is 2-3 stops underexposure, and let flash provide most of the light. The flash unit will set a SS of around 1/200 sec, to allow the flash to fire when the shutter is open, but by setting a low ISO and small aperture, you can underexpose the ambient light.
close crop bee
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